


Still Awake and Taking Corners Quickly

by thought



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1427929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wyoming gets a new hobby. Florida gets a new scarf. CT is trying to get a chance to talk to Texas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Awake and Taking Corners Quickly

Washington hates planets. It’s been a tough mission all around, the kind that involves too many dead bodies and not enough answers and a long stretch of sleepless night marching ahead of him like the soldiers he’s just slaughtered. Connie's already retreated to the Pelican, blood seeping through the gash in her armour-- shoulder wound, inconvenient, though not life-threatening. He'd seen her take the hit out of the corner of his eye, followed the flash of movement as she hit the ground, turned in time to watch the lag as the spray of numbers turned to blood mid-air, spattering back down on the lifeless soil around her body. For that moment she had been an electric charge suddenly grounded, and it left Wash unsettled.

Florida's kneeling in that same dirt, right in the indentation where her boots churned up the rich black soil. He's shoved his hands deep into the ground, tearing up fistfuls of the stuff and letting it trickle back down through his gloved fingers. Wash glances away, glances back and sees those same hands buried deep in someone's torso, coming up with blood and viscera dripping back down, the same quiet, peaceful curve to Florida's shoulders. He tries not to vomit. Fails. Hunches around his cramping stomach, rips his helmet off, tries to suck in air and chokes on bile, blinks involuntary tears out of his lashes. Florida comes to stand beside him, brushing the dirt off his gloves.

"This sort of mission's always the worst for people," he says, like someone's conciliatory uncle. "Just keep breathing, the fresh air will help."

Wash inhales and tastes damp earth and ozone and smoke, swallows coppery saliva. He shoves the helmet back on with the same force he’d ripped it off, fingers clumsy and fumbling until the seals finally hiss shut.

*

The first time Wash sees Texas after the three-on-one match it's through the tiny window outside The Director's office. The Director's on the wrong side of the desk, hands folded behind his back like he's holding himself back. Tex is standing too close, up in his face, aggressive and cocky and pushing and so obviously new to the program, to the way things work, that wash wants to rush in and pull her back. He glances away, thinks about not looking back. Does it anyway. The Director’s holding a baby and the blond woman in front of him has a backpack over one shoulder. The Director is kissing her-- alone-- she's bleeding out on the floor-- holding a datapad in one hand, a bottle of scotch in the other-- she's bleeding out on the floor and it's hazy, shifting through possibility after possibility, each death more horrific than the last.

Wash isn't supposed to see this. He walks away, fast and steady, each heartbeat a boot coming down on metal plating. He remembers South saying "gentleman prefer blonds, fucking look at us." Thinks this is important, but isn't quite sure how yet.

*

Wyoming takes up knitting.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Texas asks, leaning on the back of his chair still in full armour. Wash is uncomfortably squashed between York and Carolina on the sofa that is absolutely too small for three people, and he looks up from his reading when she speaks.

"Haven't you always wanted a gun cozy?" Wyoming asks, like it's the most reasonable thing in the world. There are circles under his eyes dark like they've been drawn on with permanent marker.

"Absolutely," says York absently. "Aqua, if you're offering."

"Fuck you," Carolina says automatically. "Make it pink, Reggie."

"Make her socks," York says. "So she'll quit stealing mine."

Wash closes his eyes and burrows down further between the solid masses of their shoulders.

"It's... a mental exercise," Wyoming answers Tex's original question. He holds up the ball of yarn-- blue like Florida's armour. "It's just... a ball of...wibbly wobbly, etc. Can become a million different things until you actually start with the needles."

"Managing potentialities," Gamma says.

The door opens and CT pokes her head in. "Agent Texas," she says.

Tex turns. "That's me."

"I-- can I talk to you? I'm not interrupting?"

Carolina's gone perfectly still beside Wash, and he feels his own muscles tightening. Tex shrugs. "Nah. Wyoming was just explaining how knitting a scarf for his boyfriend is preserving the existence of space and time."

Connie's eyes lock on the blue of the half-finished scarf draped over Wyoming's arm. She flinches, goes staticky and out of focus, glances over her shoulder.

"Never mind," she says. "I'll... tell you later."

Wyoming drops his knitting needles. Gamma flares, disappears. Wash has a feeling those dark circles are only going to get worse.

*

Florida wears the scarf over his armour. It looks ridiculous and its lifespan will no doubt be short, but he just shrugs when anyone asks him about it.

"It was a lovely gift," he says. Wash stares straight ahead. Doesn't want to think about the other memories that 'a gift' might conjure for the other man. "All natural fibers, too. It helps when I've been stuck in this armour for too long."

CT takes a knife to the scarf late one night when Florida's in a meeting with The Counselor. Wash watches her and looks away and looks back and she's still slicing the soft knit apart. He looks away again, tastes electricity on the tip of his tongue.

"He'll know it was me," she says, crackly and distorted like a badly-tuned radio. Wash walks away and keeps walking until he walks right in between Texas and Carolina snarling uncreative insults at each other outside the training room. He looks right and it's a blur of fightfightharderharderworkworknevergoodenoughdon'tstopneverstop. Looks left and sees Tex, armour gleaming and still aggressive, still cocky after all these months. He no longer wants to pull her back.

*

Allison. Can you hear me yet?

*

Texas kills Connecticut.

Wash isn't there. By the time the leader drags a set of armour into his ship, babbling noble platitudes all the while, neither is Connie. A new folder appears on the datapad registered to the assistant-chair of the UNSC oversight sub-committee.

That night, Agent Texas hears someone calling her name. And then she hears a lot more.

*

"Once you cast-on," Texas says. "It's still not set in stone. Knit the first couple rows and there's still a scarf or a dishrag."

Wyoming looks up. He and wash are taking their shift at Carolina's bedside. Wash doesn't remember anyone else taking so long to wake up from implantation.

"Not if you don't have a pattern."

Tex nods. "As a matter of fact, I do. Call it someone's parting gift."

Gamma flares to life. Wash watches as Omega paces the air behind Tex's shoulders.

Wyoming sets aside the needles and the ball of yarn. "And what are you going to use for material? Artificial fibers aren't as easy to work with."

Tex huffs out something like a laugh, tilts her head towards Wash. "Hey, Washington. Take a good long look at me." She takes off her helmet. Fucking South Dakota and her fucking blonds comment is never not going to make him laugh at inappropriate times.

*

When Carolina gets in her first hit on Texas, the other woman turns away, pops open her helmet and spits blood. Smirks. Doesn’t move fast enough to dodge Carolina's incoming punch, but it never makes contact.  
"Allison!" The Director shouts, and the AI scream with him, and Carolina hits the floor, screaming and sobbing and Wash can’t look at her, doesn't want the rollercoaster of on the floor and screaming. Cannot take that on, too.

Just before they leave the training room he overhears The Director, strangely vulnerable as he looks over at The Counselor. "I should've seen this coming. Should've seen what she was planning."

"I suspect," says the Counselor gently, "That Agent Texas is only seen when she wishes to be seen."

*

Texas runs. Wyoming and Gamma try to stop her, but it doesn't take much to incapacitate them. Wyoming wakes up just before Wash is put under for his own implantation, and he's barely coherent. Gamma begs The Director to let him out. Wash looks at them and sees hours of acting classes, and then he sees something blur and out-of-focus, sees Gamma (but not Gamma) babbling out whatever "they" want to hear, whatever will keep him safe-- who are "they"?

Wash wakes up with Epsilon screaming in his head, and then he passes out again. The next time, he can hear The Director and The Counselor, speaking beside his bed.

"She's escaped our recovery crews. It should be impossible."

"She is either very good or very lucky."

The Director swears colourfully and for a long time. "We're not looking for a body, Counselor. It's both of them. She's good, but she's not that lucky."

Epsilon quiets, briefly. "Allison. He's talking about-- not dead not dead not dead not dead."

Wash slips back into unconsciousness.

*

Wash can feel the ship starting to crash, the sick lurch of gravity stabilizers fluctuating as they try to make up for the rapid shifts. There's nothing he can do strapped down to a bed. There's something hollow, though not clean, where Epsilon used to be. He sees Texas run past through the large windows; sees flashes of other battles, old armour, out-dated weapons; sees the endless dust of an empty field just before the heat of sunrise; sees Allison. Doesn't know which memories are hers and which are Epsilon's. By the time he's regained focus she's back, screaming something through the glass, probably not at him. Her helmet's off again and for the first time she doesn’t look cocky, looks fucking scared and helpless and frightened.

A voice from beside him startles Wash, and he looks away from Tex. Maine is standing beside his bed. Sigma glows bright and burning and larger than he's ever seen.

"She can't find him," Sigma says, faux-sympathetic. "He's too confused to manifest, and Texas chose to make her bed, didn’t she, Agent Washington? It's a shame she'll be lying in it alone."

Wash says, "We're crashing. You have to untie me."

Sigma comes very close, and Wash has to close his eyes against the harsh light. He swears he can feel heat on his cheeks. "You know, Agent, I really, really don't. That's the entire point."

Maine leaves. Wash manages to remain awake long enough to see Tex shove her helmet back on and take off in the same direction, but he slides back into unconsciousness after that.

The next time he wakes up, The Director is staring down at him. He's still tied down to the bed. The lights are flickering, and it’s far colder than it should be.

"Good morning, agent Washington," he says. Wash glances over at the monitors hooked up to his bed. They've all gone dark. He looks back at The Director. The Director is standing over him. "There was another incident. It's not your fault."

Washington starts screaming. He doesn't stop for a very long time.


End file.
